Richard Cockerill hopes past experiences can aid title bid

David Skippers

Edinburgh head coach Richard Cockerill before the Guinness PRO14 match at BT Murrayfield, Edinburgh.

Head coach Richard Cockerill has urged Edinburgh to forget about their historic failures and focus on delivering a brighter future ahead of their semi-final.

The capital outfit will line up in their first-ever PRO14 semi-final when they host Ulster at Murrayfield on Saturday.

Edinburgh have delivered year-on-year progress since Cockerill took over in 2017 and now the former England hooker is looking to go all the way and claim the club’s first ever major trophy.

His debut campaign ended with a league quarter-final defeat to Munster, while last season they went as far as the last eight in the Champions Cup only to fall to the Irish giants again.

But Cockerill hopes those bitter experiences can this time fuel his team to finally fulfil their quest for glory.

He said: “We have to perform and we have to get it right. Semi-finals and finals are all about the result. You have to get the performance to get the result.

“That’s something that Scottish teams haven’t dealt with particularly well. Certainly Edinburgh have never won a trophy, so clearly we haven’t dealt with it particularly well in the past.

“In my first year we qualified for the play-offs for the first time. (In my) second year we dropped off a bit in the league but beat Toulon and Montpelier to qualify for a home quarter-final in the Champions Cup and had an opportunity to beat Munster.

“I’m hoping those experiences of the last three seasons will come to fruition on Saturday night. It’s about knowing how to play knockout rugby and not playing an exhibition.

“At the pressure moments, we need to deliver – those tiny moments make the difference – and not worry too much about history.

“Of the four teams left, we are the least favoured team but we back ourselves to see how far we can go in this competition.

“I’m not sure if we’re behind or ahead of schedule. With the money that’s in the other teams and their budgets, we are doing pretty well for ourselves and are probably batting above our average.”

While Ulster have fitness worries over Ireland stars Jordi Murphy, Jacob Stockdale and Stuart McCloskey, Edinburgh are at full strength for this weekend’s clash.

Cockerill added: “I just hope we’ve learned the lesson from the last few years where we’ve been in some tight games and just lost.

“Hopefully we now have the wherewithal from the experiences our players have both for their club and at Test level that we can get across the line in this type of game.”

 

Edinburgh